THE ONE REMAINS, THE MANY CHANGE AND PASS
You Scotsmen are a pertinacious brood;
Fitly you wear the thistle in your cap,
As in your grim theology.
O we're not all so fierce! God knows you'll find,
Well-combed and smooth-licked gentlemen enough,
Who will rejoice with you
To sneer at Calvin's close-wedged creed.
--BLACKIE.
Sow not in Sorrow,
Fling your seed abroad, and know
God sends tomorrow,
The rain to make it grow.
--BLACKIE.
There are epochs in every life that cut it sharply asunder, its
continuity is broken and things can never be the same again. This was
the dominant feeling that came to Thora Ragnor, as she sat with her
mother one afternoon in early January. It was a day of Orkney's most
uncomfortable and depressing kind, the whole island being swept by
drifting clouds of vapour, which not only filled the atmosphere but
also the houses, so that everything was to the touch damp and
uncomfortable. Nothing could escape its miserable contact, even
sitting on the hearthstone its power was felt; and until a good
northwester came to dissipate the damp moisture, nobody expected much
from any one's temper.
Thora was restless and unhappy. Her life appeared to have been
suddenly deprived of all joy and sunshine. She felt as if everything
was at an end, or might as well be, and her mother's placid, peaceful
face irritated her. How could she sit knitting mufflers for the
soldiers in the trenches, and not think of Boris and also of Ian, whom
they had all conspired to send to the same danger and perhaps death?
She could not understand her mother's serenity. It occurred to her
this afternoon, that she might have run away with Ian to Shetland and
there her sisters would have seen her married; and she did not do
this, she obeyed her parents, and what did she get for it? Loneliness
and misery and her lover sent far away from her. Oh, those moments
when Virtue has failed to reward us and we regret having served her!
To the young, they are sometimes very bitter.
And her mother's calmness! It not only astonished, it angered her. How
could she sit still and not talk of Boris and Ian? It was a necessary
relief to Thora, their names were at her lips all day long. But Thora
had yet to learn that it is the middle-aged and the old who have the
power of hoping through everything, because they have the knowledge
that the soul survives all its adventures. This is the great
inspiration, it is the good wine which God keeps to the last. The old,
the way-worn, the faint and weary, they know this as the young can
never know it.
However, we may say to bad weather, as to all other bad things, "this,
too, will pass," and in a couple of days the sky was blue, the sun
shining, and the atmosphere fresh and clear and full of life-giving
energy. Ships of all kinds were hastening into the harbour and the
mail boat, broad-bottomed and strongly built, was in sight. Then there
was a little real anxiety. There was sure to be letters, what news
would they bring? Some people say there is no romance in these days.
Very far wrong are they. These sealed bits of white paper hold very
often more wonderful romances than any in the Thousand Nights of story
telling.
Rahal's and Thora's anxiety was soon relieved. A messenger from the
warehouse came quickly to the house, with a letter from Ragnor to
Rahal and a letter from Ian to Thora. Ragnor's letter said they had
had a rough voyage southward, the storm being in their faces all the
way to Leith. There they left the boat and took a train for London,
from which place they went as quickly as possible to Spithead, fearing
to miss the ship sailing for the Crimea on the eleventh. Ragnor said
he had seen Ian safely away to Sebastopol and observed that he was
remarkably cheerful and satisfied. He spoke then of his own delight
with London and regretted that he had not made arrangements which
would permit him to stay a week or two longer there.
Thora's letter was a genuine love letter, for Ian was deeply in love
and everything he said was in the superlative mood. Lovers like such
letters. They are to them the sacred writings. It did not seem
ridiculous to Thora to be called "an angel of beauty and goodness, the
rose of womanhood, the lily on his heart, his star of hope, the
sunshine of his life," and many other extravagant impossibilities. She
would have been disappointed if Ian had been more matter-of-fact and
reasonable.
So there was now comparative happiness in the house of Ragnor, for
though the master's letters were never much more than plain statements
of doings or circumstances, they satisfied Rahal. It is not every man
that knows how to write to a woman, even if he loves her; but women
have a special divinity in reading love letters, and they know beyond
all doubting the worth of words as affected by those who use them.
Ragnor gave himself a whole week in London and before leaving that
city for Edinburgh he wrote a few lines home, saying he intended to
stay in London over the following Sabbath and hear Canon Liddon
preach. On Monday he would reach Edinburgh and on Tuesday have an
interview with Dr. Macrae and then take the first boat for home. They
could now wait easily, the silence had been broken, the weather was
good, they had "The History of Pendennis" and "David Copperfield" to
read, their little duties and little cares to attend to, and they were
not at all unhappy.
At length, the master was to be home _that_ day. If the wind was
favourable, he might arrive about two o'clock, but Rahal thought the
boat would hardly manage it before three with the wind in her teeth,
or it might be nearer four. The house was all ready for him, spick and
span from roof to cellar and a dinner of the good things he
particularly liked in careful preparation. And, after all, he came a
little earlier than was expected.
"Dear Conall," said Rahal, "I have been watching for thee, but I
thought it would be four o'clock, ere thou made Kirkwall."
"Not with Donald Farquar sailing the boat. The way he manages a boat
is beyond reason."
"How is that?"
"He talks to her, as if she was human. He scolds and coaxes her and
this morning he promised to paint and gild her figurehead, if she got
into Kirkwall before three. Then every sailor on board helped her and
the wind changed a point or two and that helped her, and now and then
Farquar pushed her on, with a good or bad word, and she saved herself
by just eleven minutes."
"And how well thou art looking! Never have I seen thee so handsome
before, never! What hast thou been doing to Conall Ragnor?"
"I will tell thee. When I had bid Ian good-bye, I resolved to take a
week's holiday in London and as I walked down the Strand, I noticed
that every one looked at me, not unkindly but curiously, and when I
looked at the men who looked at me, I saw we were different. I went
into a barber's first, and had my hair cut like Londoners wear it,
short and smart, and not thick and bushy, like mine was."
"Well then, thy hair was far too long but they have cut off all thy
curls."
"I like the wanting of them. They looked very womanish. I'm a deal
more purpose-like without them. Then I went to a first-class
tailor-man and he fit me out with the suit I'm wearing. He said it was
'the correct thing for land or water.' What dost thou think of it?"
"Nothing could be more becoming to thee."
"Nay then, I got a Sabbath Day suit that shames this one. And I bought
a church hat and a soft hat that beats all, and kid gloves, and a good
walking stick with a fancy knob."
"Thou art not needing a walking stick for twenty years yet."
"Well then, the English gentlemen always carries a walking stick. I
think they wouldn't know the way they were going without one. At last,
I went to the shoemakers, and he made me take off my 'Wellingtons.' He
said no one wore them now, and he shod me, as thou sees, very
comfortably. I like the change."
Then they heard Thora calling them, and Ragnor taking Rahal's hand
hastened to answer the call. She was standing at the foot of the
stairway, and her father kissed her and as he did so whispered--"All
is well, dear one. After dinner, I will tell thee." Then he took her
hand, and the three in one went together to the round table, set so
pleasantly near to the comfortable fireside. Standing there,
hand-clasped, the master said those few words of adoration and
gratitude that turned the white-spread board into a household altar.
Dinner was on the table and its delicious odours filled the room and
quickly set Ragnor talking.
"I will tell you now, what I saw in London," he said. "Ian is a story
good enough to keep until after dinner. I saw him sail away from
Spithead, and he went full of hope and pluck and sure of success. Then
I took the first train back to London. I got lodgings in a nice little
hotel in Norfolk Street, just off the Strand, and London was calling
me all night long."
"Thou could not see much, Father, in one week," said Thora.
"I saw the Queen and the Houses of Parliament, and I saw the Tower of
London and Westminster Abbey and the Crystal Palace. And I have heard
an oratorio, with a chorus of five hundred voices and Sims Reeves as
soloist. I have been to Drury Lane, and the Strand Theatres, to a big
picture gallery, and a hippodrome. My dear ones, the end of one
pleasure was just the beginning of another; in one week, I have lived
fifty years."
Any one can understand how a new flavour was added to the food they
were eating by such conversation. Not all the sauces in Christendom
could have made it so piquant and appetizing. Ragnor carved and ate
and talked, and Rahal and Thora listened and laughed and asked endless
questions, and when the mind enters into a meal, it not only prolongs,
it also sweetens and brightens it. I suppose there may be in every
life two or three festivals, that stand out from all others--small,
unlooked-for meetings, perhaps--where love, hope, wonder and happy
looking-forward, made the food taste as if it had been cooked in
Paradise. Where, at least for a few hours, a mortal might feel that
man had been made only a little lower than the angels.
Now, if any of my readers have such a memory, let them close the
book, shut their eyes and live it over again. It was probably a
foretaste of a future existence, where we shall have faculties capable
of fuller and higher pleasures; faculties that without doubt "will be
satisfied." For in all hearts that have suffered, there must abide the
conviction that the Future holds Compensation, not Punishment.
But without forecast or remembrance, the Ragnors that night enjoyed
their highly mentalised meal, and after it was over and the table set
backward, and the white hearth brushed free of ashes, they drew around
the fire, and Ragnor laid down his pipe, and said:
"I left London last Monday, and I was in Edinburgh until Wednesday
morning. On Tuesday I called on Dr. Macrae. I had a letter to give him
from Ian."
"Why should Ian have written to him?" asked Rahal, in a tone of
disapproval.
"Because Ian has a good heart, he wrote to his father. I read the
letter. It was all right."
"What then did he say to him?"
"Well, Rahal, he told his father that he was leaving for the
front, and he wished to leave with his forgiveness and blessing, if he
would give it to him. He said that he was sure that in their
life-long dispute he must often have been in the wrong, and he
asked forgiveness for all such lapses of his duty. He told his father
that he had a clear plan of success before him, but said that in
all cases--fortunate or unfortunate--he would always remember the
name he bore and do nothing to bring it shame or dishonour. A very
good, brave letter, dear ones. I give Ian credit for it."
"Did thou advise him to write it?" asked Rahal.
"No, it sprang from his own heart."
"Thou should not have sanctioned it."
"Ian did right, Rahal. I did right to sanction it."
"Father, if Ian has a clear plan of success before him, what is it? He
ought to have told us."
"He thought it out while we were at sea, he asked me to explain the
matter to you. It is, indeed, a plan so simple and manifest, that I
wonder we did not propose it at the very first. You must recollect
that Ian was in the employ of Dr. Finlay of Edinburgh for three years
and a half, and that during that period he acquired both a large
amount of medical knowledge and also of medical experience. Now we all
know that Ian has a special gift for this science, especially for its
surgical side, and he is not going to the trenches or the cavalry, he
is going to offer himself to the Surgical and Medical Corps. He will
go to the battlefield, carry off the wounded, give them first help, or
see them to the hospital. In this way he will be doing constant good
to others and yet be forwarding the career which is to make his future
happy and honourable."
"Then Ian has decided to be a surgeon, Father?"
"Yes, and I can tell thee, Thora, he has not set himself a task beyond
his power. I think very highly of Ian, no one could help doing so; and
see here, Thora! I have a letter in my pocket for thee! He gave it to
me as I bid him good-bye at Spithead."
"I am so happy, Father! So happy!"
"Thou hast good reason to be happy. We shall all be proud of Ian in
good time."
"Did thou give Ian's letter to his father's hands, or did thou mail
it, Coll?"
"I gave it to him, personally."
"What was thy first impression of him?"
"He gave me first of all an ecclesiastical impression. I just
naturally looked for a gown or surplice. He wanted something without
one. He met me coldly but courteously, and taking Ian's letter from
me, placed it deliberately upon a pile of letters lying on his desk. I
said, 'It is from thy son, Doctor, perhaps thou had better read it at
once. It is a good letter, sir, read it.'
"He bowed, and asked if Ian was with me. I said, 'No, sir, he is
on his way to Scutari.' Then he was silent. After a few moments he
asked me if I had been in Edinburgh during the past Sabbath. 'You
should have been here,' he added, 'then you could have heard the
great Dr. Chalmers preach.' I told him that I had spent that
never-to-be-forgotten Sabbath under the blessed dome of St. Paul's in
London. I said something about the transcending beauty of the
wonderful music of the cathedral service, and spoke with delight of
the majestic nave, filled with mediaeval rush-bottomed chairs for the
worshippers, and I told him how much more fitting they were in the
House of God than pews." And Ragnor uttered the last word with a
new-found emphasis. "He asked, quite scornfully, in what sense I
found them more fitting, and I answered rather warmly--'Why, sir,
sitting together in chairs, we felt so much more at home. We were
like one great family in our Father's house.'"
"Are the chairs rented?" asked Rahal.
"Rented!" cried Ragnor scornfully. "No, indeed! There are no dear
chairs and no cheap chairs, all are equal and all are free. I never
felt so like worshipping in a church before. The religious spirit had
free way in our midst."
"What did Macrae say?"
"He said, he supposed the rush chairs were an 'Armenian innovation';
and I answered, 'The pews, sir, they are the innovation.'"
"Did thou have any argument with him? I have often heard Ian say he
plunged into religious argument with every one he met."
"Well, Rahal, I don't know how it happened, but I quickly found myself
in a good atmosphere of contradictions. I do not remember either what
I had been saying, but I heard him distinctly assert, that 'it was the
Armenians who had described the Calvinists, and they had not wasted
their opportunities.' Then I found myself telling him that Armenianism
had ruled the religious world ever since the birth of Christianity;
but that Calvinism was a thing of yesterday, a mere Geneva opinion.
Rahal, the man has a dogma for a soul, and yet through this hard
veil, I could see that he was full of a longing for love; but he has
not found out the way to love, his heart is ice-bound. He made me say
things I did not want to say, he stirred my soul round and round until
it boiled over, and then the words would come. Really, Rahal, I did
not know the words were in my mind, till his aggravating questions
made me say them."
"What words? Art thou troubled about them?"
"A little. He was talking of faith and doubt, especially as it
referred to the Bible, and I listened until I could bear it no longer.
He was asking what proof there was for this, and that, and the other,
and as I said, he got me stirred up beyond myself and I told him I
cared nothing about proofs. I said proofs were for sceptics and not
for good men who _knew_ in whom they had believed."
"Well then, Coll, that was enough, was it not?"
"Not for Macrae. He said immediately, 'Suppose there was no divine
authority for the scheme of morals and divinity laid down in this
Book,' and he laid his hand reverently on the Bible, 'where should we
be?' And I told him, we should be just where we were, because God's
commands were written on every conscience and that these commands
would stand firm even if creeds became dust, and Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John and Paul, all failed and passed away. 'Power of God!' I cried, as
I struck the table with my fist, 'it takes God's tireless, patient,
eternal love to put up with puny men, always doubting Him. I believe
in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth!' I said,
'and I want no proofs about Him in whom I believe.' By this time,
Rahal, he had me on fire. I was ready to deny anything he asserted,
especially about hell, for thou knows, Rahal, that there are hells in
this world and no worse needed. So when he asked if I believed in the
Calvinistic idea of hell, I answered, 'I deny it! My soul denies
it--utterly!' I reminded him that God spoke to Dives in hell and
called him son and that Dives, even there, clung to the fatherhood of
God. And I told him this world was a hell to those who deserved hell,
and a place of much trial to most men and women, and I thought it was
poor comfort to preach to such, that the next world was worse. There
now! I have told you enough. He asked me to lunch with him, and I did;
and I told him as we ate, what a fine fellow Ian was, and he listened
and was silent."
"Then you saw Ian's mother and sister?" asked Thora.
"No, I did not. They had gone for the winter to the Bridge of Allan.
Mrs. Macrae is sick, her husband seemed unhappy about her."
Rahal hoped now that her home would settle itself into its usual calm,
methodical order. She strove to give to every hour its long accustomed
duty, and to infuse an atmosphere of rest and of "use and wont" into
every day's affairs. It was impossible. The master of the house had
suffered a world change. He had tasted of strange pleasures and
enthusiasms, and was secretly planning a life totally at variance with
his long accustomed routine and responsibilities. He did not speak of
the things in his heart but nevertheless they escaped him.
Very soon he began to have much more regular communication with his
sons in Shetland, and finally he told Rahal that he intended taking
his son Robert into partnership. Such changes grew slowly in Ragnor's
mind, and much more slowly in practice, but Rahal knew that they were
steadily working to some ultimate, and already definite and determined
end in her husband's will.
The absent also exerted a far greater power upon the home than any
one believed. Ian's letters came with persistent regularity, and the
influence of one was hardly spent, when another arrived of quite a
different character. Ian was rapidly realizing his hopes. He had been
gladly taken into a surgical corps, under the charge of a Doctor
Frazer, and his life was a continual drama of stirring events.
Generally he wrote between actions, and then he described the gallant
young men resting on the slopes of the beleaguered hill, with their
weapons at their finger tips, but always cheerful. Sometimes he spoke
of them under terrible fire in their life-or-death push forward,
followed by the surgeons and stretcher-bearers. Sometimes, he had been
to the trenches to dress a wound that would not stop bleeding, but
always he wondered at seeing the resolute grit and calmness of these
young men, who had been the dandies in London drawing-rooms a year ago
and who were now smoking placidly in the trenches at Redan.
"What is it?" he asked an old surgeon, on whom he was waiting. "Is it
recklessness?"
"No, sir!" was the answer. "It is straight courage. Courage in the
blood. Courage nourished on their mother's milk. Courage educated into
them at Eton or Rugby, in many a fight and scuffle. Courage that
lived with them night and day at Oxford or Cambridge, and that made
them choose danger and death rather than be known for one moment as a
cad or a coward. It was dancing last year. It is fighting in a proper
quarrel this year. Different duties, that is all."
Every now and then Sunna dropped them letters about which there was
much pleasant speculating, for as the summer came forward, she began
to accept the disappointments made by the death of Boris, and to
consider what possibilities of life were still within her power. She
said in May that "she was sick and weary of everything about
Sebastopol, and that she wanted to go back to Scotland, far more
frantically than she ever wanted to leave it." In June, she said, she
had got her grandfather to listen to reason, but had been forced to
cry for what she wanted, a humiliation beyond all apologies.
Her next letter was written in Edinburgh, where she declared she
intended to stay for some time. Maximus Grant was in Edinburgh with
his little brother, who was under the care and treatment of an eminent
surgeon living there. "The poor little laddie is dying," she said,
"but I am able to help him over many bad hours, and Max is not
half-bad, that is, he might be worse if left to himself. Heigh-ho!
What varieties of men, and varieties of their trials, poor women have
to put up with!"
As the year advanced Sunna's letters grew bright and more and more
like her, and she described with admirable imitative piquancy the
literary atmosphere and conversation which is Edinburgh's native air.
In the month of November, little Eric went away suddenly, in a
paroxysm of military enthusiasm, dying literally the death of a
soldier "with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the
trumpets," in his soul's hearing.
"We adored him," wrote Sunna, in her most fervent religious mood,
which was just as sincere as any other mood. "He was such a loving,
clever little soul, and he lay so long within the hollow of Death's
sickle. There he heard and saw wonderful things, that I would not dare
to speak of. Max has wept very sincerely. It is my lot apparently, to
administer drops of comfort to him. In this world, I find that women
can neither hide nor run away from men and their troubles, the moment
anything goes wrong with them, they fly to some woman and throw their
calamity on her."
"It is easy to see which way Sunna is drifting," said Rahal, after
this letter had been read. "She will marry Maximus Grant, of course."
"Mother, her grandfather wishes that marriage. It is very suitable.
His silent, masterful way will cure Sunna's faults."
"It will do nothing of the kind. What the cradle rocks, the spade
buries. If Sunna lives to be one hundred years old--a thing not
unlikely--she will be Sunna. Just Sunna."
During all this summer, Ragnor was deeply engrossed in his business,
and the Vedders remained in Edinburgh, as did also Mistress Brodie,
though she had had all the best rooms in her Kirkwall house
redecorated. "It is her hesitation about grandfather. She will, and
she won't," wrote Sunna, "and she keeps grandfather hanging by a
hair." Then she made a few scornful remarks about "the hesitating
_liaisons_ of old women" and concluded that it all depended upon the
marriage ceremony.
Grandfather [she wrote] wants to sneak into some out of the way
little church, and get the business over as quickly and quietly as
possible; and Mistress Brodie has dreams of a peach-bloom satin
gown, and a white lace bonnet. She thought "that was enough for a
second affair"; and when I gently hoped that it was at least an
affair of the heart, she said with a distinct snap, "Don't be
impertinent, Miss!" However, all this is but the overture to the
great matrimonial drama, and it is rather interesting.
I saw by a late London paper that Thora's lover has gone and got
himself decorated, or crossed, for doing some dare-devil sort of
thing about wounded men. I wonder how Thora will like to walk on
Pall Mall with a man who wears a star or a medal on his breast.
Such things make women feel small. For, of course, we could win
stars and medals if we had the chance. Max considers Ian "highly
praise-worthy." Max lately has a way of talking in two or three
syllables. I am trying to remember where I left my last spelling
book; I fear I shall have to get up my orthography.
The whole of this year A. D. 1855 was one of commonplaces stirred by
tragic events. It is this conjunction that makes the most prosaic of
lives always a story. It only taught Thora and Rahal to make the most
of such pleasures as were within their reach. In the evening Ragnor
was always ready to share what they had to offer, but in the daytime
he was getting his business into such perfect condition that he could
leave it safely in charge of his son Robert for a year, or more, if
that was his wish.
On the second of March, the Czar Nicholas died, and there was good
hope in that removal. In June, General Raglan died of cholera, and on
the following fifth of September, the Russians, finding they could no
longer defend Sebastopol, blew up its defences and also its two
immense magazines of munitions. This explosion was terrific, the very
earth appeared to reel. The town they deliberately set on fire. Then
on Sunday morning, September the ninth, the English and French took
possession of the great fortress, though it was not until the last day
of February, A. D. 1856, that the treaty of peace was signed.
After the occupation of Sebastopol, however, there was a cessation of
hostilities, and the hospitals rapidly began to empty and the
physicians and surgeons to return home. Dr. Frazer remained at his
post till near Christmas, and was then able to leave the few cases
remaining in the charge of competent nurses. Ian remained at his side
and they returned to England together. It was then within a few days
of Christmas, and Ian hastened northward without delay.
There was no hesitating welcome for him now; he was met by the truest
and warmest affection, he was cheerfully given the honour which he had
faithfully won. And the wedding day was no longer delayed, it was
joyfully hastened forward. Bishop Hedley, the Vedders and Maximus
Grant had already arrived and the little town was all agog and eager
for the delayed ceremony. Sunna had brought with her Thora's new
wedding dress and the day had been finally set for the first of
January.
"Thou will begin a fresh life with a fresh year," said Rahal to her
daughter. "A year on which, as yet, no tears have fallen; and which
has not known care or crossed purpose. On its first page thou will
write thy marriage joy and thy new hopes, and the light of a perfect
love will be over it."
In the meantime life was full of new delights to Thora. Wonderful
things were happening to her every day. The wedding dress was here.
Adam Vedder had brought her a pretty silver tea service, Aunt
Barbie--now Madame Vedder--had remembered her in many of those
womanwise ways, that delight the heart of youth. Even Dominie Macrae
had sent her a gold watch, and the little sister-in-law had chosen for
her gift some very pretty laces. Rich and poor alike brought her their
good-will offerings, and many old Norse awmries were ransacked in the
search for jewels or ornaments of the jade stone, which all held as
"luck beyond breaking."
The present which pleased Thora most of all was a new wedding-dress,
the gift of her mother. The rich ivory satin was perfect and peerless
in its exquisite fit and simplicity; jewels, nor yet lace, could have
added nothing to it. Sunna had brought it with her own toilet. In
fact, she was ready to make a special sensation with it on the first
of January, for her wedding garment as Thora's bridesmaid was nothing
less than a robe of gold and white shot silk, worn over a hoop. She
had been wearing a hoop all winter in Edinburgh, but she was quite
sure she would be the first "hooped lady" to appear in Kirkwall town.
Thora might wear the bride veil, with its wreath of myrtle and
rosemary, but she had a pleasant little laugh, as she mentally saw
herself in the balloon of white and gold shot silk, walking
majestically up the nave of St. Magnus. It was so long since hoops had
been worn. None of the present generation of Kirkwall women could ever
have seen a lady in a hoop, and behind the present generation there
was no likelihood of any hooped ladies in Kirkwall.
Thora had no hoop. Her orders had been positively against it and
unless Madame Vedder had slipped inside "the bell" she could not
imagine any rival. As she made this reflection, she smiled, and then
translated the smile into the thought, "If she has, she will look like
a haystack."
Now Ian's military suit in his department had been of white duff or
linen, plentifully adorned with gilt buttons and bands representing
some distinctive service. It was the secret desire of Ian to wear this
suit, and he rather felt that Thora or his mother-in-law should ask
him to do so. For he knew that its whiteness and gilt, and tiny knots
of ribbon, gave to the wearer that military air, which all men yearn a
little after. He wished to wear it on his wedding day but Thora had
not thought of it, neither had Sunna. However, on the 29th, Rahal,
that kind, wise woman, asked him as a special favour, to wear his
medical uniform. She said, "the townsfolk would be so disappointed
with black broadcloth and a pearl-grey waistcoat. They longed to see
him as he went onto the battlefield, to save or succour the wounded."
"But, Mother," he answered, "I went in the plainest linen suit to
bring in the wounded and dying."
"I know, dear one, but they do not know, and it is not worth while
destroying an innocent illusion, we have so few of them as we grow
old."
"Very well, Mother, it shall be as you wish."
"Of course Ian wished to wear it," said Sunna.
"Oh, Sunna, you must not judge all men from Max."
"I am far from that folly. Your father has been watching the winds and
the clouds all day. So have I. Conall Ragnor is always picturesque,
even poetical. I feel safe if I follow him. He says it will be fine
tomorrow. I hope so!"
This hope was more than justified. It was a day of sunshine and little
wandering south winds, and the procession was a fact. Now Ragnor knew
that this marriage procession, as a national custom, was passing away,
but it had added its friendliness to his own and all his sons' and
daughters' weddings and he wanted Thora's marriage ceremonial to
include it. "When thou art an old woman, Thora," he said to her, "then
thou wilt be glad to have remembered it."
At length the New Year dawned and the day arrived. All was ready for
it. There was no hurry, no fret, no uncertainty. Thora rode to the
cathedral in the Vedder's closed carriage with her father and mother.
Ian was with Maximus and Sunna in the Galt landeau. Adam Vedder and
his bride rode together in their open Victoria and all were ready as
the clock struck ten. Then a little band of stringed instruments and
young men took their place as leaders of the procession, and when they
started joyfully "Room for the Bride!" the carriages took the places
assigned them and about two hundred men and women, who had gathered at
the Ragnor House, followed in procession, many joining in the
singing.
The cathedral was crowded when they reached it, and Dr. Hedley in
white robes came forward to meet the bride and, with smiles and loving
good will, to unite her forever to the choice of her soul.
It was almost a musical marriage. Melody began and followed and closed
the whole ceremonial. About twenty returned with the bridal party to
the Ragnor House to eat the bridal dinner, but the general townsfolk
were to have their feast and dance in the Town Hall about seven in the
evening. The Bishop stayed only to bless the meal, for the boat was
waiting that was to carry him to a Convocation of the Church then
sitting in Edinburgh. But he wore his sprig of rosemary on his vest,
and he stood at Ragnor's right hand and watched him mix the Bride
Cup, watched him mingle in one large silver bowl of pre-Christian age
the pale, delicious sherry and fine sugar and spices and stir the
whole with a strip of rosemary. Then every guest stood up and was
served with a cup, most of them having in their hand a strip of
rosemary to stir it with. And after the Bishop had blessed the bride
and blessed the bridegroom, he said, "I will quote for you a passage
from an old sermon and after it, you will stir your cup again with
rosemary and grow it still more plentifully in your gardens.
"The rosemary is for married men and man challengeth it, as belonging
properly to himself. It helpeth the brain, strengtheneth the memory,
and affects kindly the heart. Let this flower of man ensign your
wisdom, love and loyalty, and carry it, not only in your hands, but in
your heads and hearts." Then he lifted his glass and stirred the wine
with his strip of rosemary, and as he did so all followed his example,
while he repeated from an old romance the following lines:
... "Before we divide,
Let us dip our rosemaries
In one rich bowl of wine, to this brave girl
And to the gentleman."
With these words he departed, and the utmost and happiest interchange
of all kinds of good fellowship followed. Every man and woman was at
perfect ease and ready to give of the best they had. Even Adam Vedder
delighted all, and especially his happy-looking bride, by his clever
condensation of Sunna's favourite story of "The Banded Men." No
finished actor could have made it, in its own way, a finer model of
dramatic narrative, especially in its quaint reversal of the parts
usually played by father and son, into those of the prodigal father
and the money-loving, prudent son. Then a little whisper went round
the table and it sprang from Sunna, and people smiled and remembered
that Adam had won his wife from three younger men than himself and, as
if by a single, solid impulse, they stirred their wine cups once more
and called for a cheer for the old bridegroom, who had been faithful
for forty years to his first love and had then walked off with her,
from Provost, Lawyer and Minister; all of them twenty years younger
than himself.
Getting near to three o'clock, they began to sing and Rahal was
pleased to hear that sound of peace, for several guests were just from
the battlefield and quite as ready for a quarrel as a song. Also
during the little confusion of removing fruit and cake and glasses,
and the substitution of the cups and saucers and the strong, hot,
sweet tea that every Norseman loves, Ian and Thora slipped away
without notice. Max Grant's carriage put them in half-an-hour on the
threshold of their own home. They crossed it hand and hand and Ian
kissed the hand he held and Thora raised her face in answer; but words
have not yet been invented that can speak for such perfect happiness.
Love is rich in his own right,
He is heir of all the spheres,
In his service day and night
Swing the tides and roll the years.
What has he to ask of fate?
Crown him, glad or desolate.
Time puts out all other flames
But the glory of his eyes;
His are all the sacred names,
His the solemn mysteries.
Crown him! In his darkest day
He has Heaven to give away!
Ian's business arrangements curtailed the length of any festivity in
relation to the marriage. He had already signed an agreement with Dr.
Frazer to return to him as soon as possible after the twelfth day and
remain as his assistant until he was fully authenticated a surgeon by
the proper schools. In the meantime he would enter the London School
of Medicine and Surgery and give to Dr. Frazer all the time not
demanded by its hours and exercises. For this attention Ian was to
receive from Dr. Frazer one hundred pounds a year. Furthermore, when
Ian had received the proper authority to call himself Dr. John Macrae,
he was to have the offer of a partnership with Dr. Frazer, on what
were considered very favourable terms.
So their little romance was at last happily over. Ian was an
infinitely finer and nobler man. He had dwelt amid great acts and
great suffering for a year and had not visited the House of Mourning
in vain. All that was light and trifling had fallen away from him. He
regarded his life and talents now as a great and solemn charge and was
resolved to make them of use to his fellows. And Thora was lovelier
than she had ever been. She had learned self-restraint and she had
hoped through evil days, till good days came; so then, she knew how to
look for good when all appeared wrong and by faith and will, bring
good out of evil.
After Thora and her husband left for London a great change took place
in the Ragnor home. Ragnor had been preparing for it ever since his
visit to London and, within a month, Robert Ragnor and his wife and
family came from Shetland and took possession. It gave Rahal a little
pain to see any woman in her place but that was nothing, she was going
to give her dear Coll the dream of his life. She was going to travel
with him, and see all the civilized countries in the world! She was
going to London first, and last, of all!